Logandra Moments in Time

"Love is the Sacrifice of Will"

Once, when Logan was young he had asked someone, a face now so faded from his memory it was no longer connected to the words the man spoke, what love was.

He remembered the answer because it was so simple yet so impossible. "Love is a sacrifice of will." The deep, jaded tenor bad told him. But the boy hearing these words for the first time could hardly believe the definition had been given; after all, his own parents, who had told each other 'I love you' at the dinners table, had turned there heartfelt words into screamed terms of hate and divorce. Another concept the nine year old boy didn't quite understand. It was at that age Logan had decided love wasn't real.

From then, Logan had deprived himself, deciding gladly that he'd never fall in love. It was hard, for sure, but being constantly in different places, with different people, it wasn't much of a problem. Until he went to middle school and met Emily Brown. She became a problem.

A beautiful, almost in high school problem. She had long, chocolate brown hair, hazel eyes, and tanned Californian skin. And - unbeknownst to Logan until they were to the movies together to see a rerun of 'Fight Club' - she had a crush on him.

Logan's heart quickened as Emily touched his forearm, his gaze drawn to hers. Her face was bathed in a blue tinged light as the lone cinema screen played on in the background. Logan couldn't hear the soundtrack anymore, despite knowing that he loved the song. All Logan registered was that she was closer to him than she had been before, and she was still nearing.

It was no lie that Logan though Emily Brown, a girl an entire year older than him, in the grade above as well, was pretty. To go as far as to say Logan was crushing would also be true - however, Logan had a habit, had a conditioned himself not to feel such a minute flurry of emotions associated with the beauty of a still prepubescent thirteen year old with unruly brown hair and a spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Logan tried to deny the rising formation of butterflies in his stomach as he kissed her. It wasn't much more than a swirl of nausea, but it was enough to bring s smile to his lips - a gesture Logan would later deny, because love wasn't real. At least, not between two friends like him and Emily. He was pretty sure he loved his mum, but he knew that his father didn't.

It took Logan another four years to feel those butterflies again. Only this time they were a hundred times more intense.

Logan was sitting with a group of people, people that he would soon call friends. He would know the people at the table better, given time, but for now they were still acquaintances, having only met twice before.

And then there was her.

She carried herself with a foreign grace he couldn't quite recognise, although he'd only really seen her walk from her car to the seminar room where they spoke few words, and even less to each other. Despite her lack of dialogue, Logan knew, deep in his bones, that she was intelligent. Well beyond his high school school knowledge.

This woman was unlike any he had met before. As cliched as it sounds.

The first thing he noticed about her was her Ivory skin. It glistened, tantalisingly soft, as she sat beneath the open windows across the table from him.

The second was her clear and intimidating eyes that met his when she glanced up at him, feeling his eyes in her. But there was something else twinkling in her eyes - possibly mirth, possibly annoyance.

The third thing he noticed about Alexandra Daddario (he had memorised her name from the script in front of him) was that, even without the grin tugging at her plump, pink lips exposing her pristine white teeth, his heart was racing relentlessly, his smile was the widest it had ever been without him even being awake enough to smile at 6:30 in the morning, and his vision had tunnelled and he was only able to see her. There was a sun halo that encircled her entire being and the fact that he couldn't hear the director, Chris Columbus, calling his name were also stand out experiences that Logan couldn't help but commit to memory.

Logan flushed red, embarrassed, as he turned his attention away from the woman and towards his boss. He loved the snicker that escaped her lips at his expense, and he wasn't even mad that she was laughing at him. In actuality, he wanted to hear the short burst of joy again, and again, and again.

No, Logan wasn't in love. He refused to be. And in doing so he cut off most outward and non work related conversations he would have with Alexandra.

If only his physical distance had made a dent in the mental and emotional closeness he felt towards Alexandra.

When he was with her, Logan felt like a different man completely. He wasn't sixteen. He didn't have divorced parents. He had never made a vow against love. Instead, when he was with Alex, Logan was every part the gentleman he'd always wanted to see in the mirror even though his words were still somewhat groggy and slurred. He didn't have any worldly possessions or obsessions, and the weight of his bad experiences didn't topple him over, in fact, he couldn't feel it.

There was just something so easy about being with Alex. She was like a long lost friend that he'd reunited with. He never needed to explain his jokes to make her laugh, and she never needed to ask if he needed s hand, she would just pitch in. It was nice, and it was comfortable, and Logan didn't realise what it was until it was too late.

They'd been told they were to shoot a love scene between their two characters. And Logan found that he wasn't protesting it. In fact, her was rather looking forward to it.

That wasn't what scared him.

What had him so disheartened was the fact that there were other girls, conventionally pretty girls who were practically his age and begging for him, and he wasn't even giving them a first chance. He was turning down girls he wouldn't have usually completely subconsciously, it was as if he was unwilling to do anything but wait for Alex to decide how she felt about him.

When Logan realised this, that was when he knew.

He rushed to where he knew Alex would be practicing their fight scene choreography. The middle of the field. He ran as fast as he could although he probably should have thought about the fact that he'd be breathless when he tried to tell her the truth.

He realised that whomever had defined live for him had been right. It was a sacrifice. A sacrifice of everything.

Logan wouldn't look at another woman, because his heart had been stolen, quite literally, by Alex. Somehow he knew that no other woman would surpass her and he was completely fine with the idea of sacrificing other potential relationships for her.

He would stay up all night, fretting over what he'd said that had made her mad, and smiling stupidly at what she'd revealed to him, playing her laughter over in his mind. Logan was sacrificing sleep and sanity, but he knew that he could function without either.

Another thing Logan was relinquishing, was his  fear. The only thing that scared him was how willing he was to do anything for her and the possibility of Alex not feeling the same as he did.

And then, he reached her. And he sacrificed himself when he peered deep into the oceans of her eyes. "I love you."

It didn't feel like a sacrifice when she returned his kiss enthusiastically.  And it was potentially the best sacrifice he'd ever made when he realised that she'd still be kissing him the same way when they were old and has great grand children.

The only thing Logan had to complain about was the fact that whomever has defined love for him had been wrong. Love wasn't a sacrifice. Even though it looked like one because he stood at an altar with Alex.

Love wasn't a sacrifice. Love, the right love, at least. Like the one he'd found with Alexandra, was a sense of completeness, and renewal, and rebirth. Because nothing he gave up for her or their family was a sacrifice, it was a gift given from his heart.

At least, that's the way he defined love for their children, and grand children, and the way generations of their family that followed them expressed their love story.